Photo: Gov Lalong
A group of North-Central members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) under the aegis of the North Central APC Forum has called on Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, to resign his appointment as the Director-General (DG) of the Tinubu/Shettima presidential campaign organisation.
The group made the appeal In a statement issued in Jos, the Plateau State capital by its leader, Saleh Zazzaga, obtained by Periscope International on Monday.
The forum described Lalong’s appointment as an insult to the region, stressing that the Forum was canvassing for the emergence of the next President from the zone. and not to produce a campaign DG for someone from another zone.
It noted that it was obvious that the forum’s push for the North-central zone to produce a president would not be actualised with Lalong’s appointment as Tinubu’s campaign DG because by implication the APC, had technicality conceded the presidency to the Southwest.
The group insisted that it would not compromise the 2023 presidency for any other position, adding that apart from the military era, the region had not produced either the President or the Vice President
Zazzaga recalled that the group had canvassed for the vice presidential slot to be zoned to the North-central zone, but the zone was denied the slot when it eventually went to the North-east.
Zazzaga said, “If the North-central is not good enough or qualified for the vice/presidential ticket because the party thinks nobody from the region has the political weight to pull votes from the northern region come 2023, how come then has the party or presidential candidate in the person of Tinubu become so trustful of someone from the region to become the presidential campaign organisation Director-General?
“Our concern in the 2023 elections is either the president or vice president, but we were denied because they considered us either not qualified or incompetent.
“But as soon as it came to Director-General of the presidential campaign, we suddenly became the most qualified.
“Ironically, it is the same Gov Simon Lalong who we canvassed support for, either as president or vice-presidential running mate, that was suddenly appointed as the DG of the party’s presidential campaign organisation.
“We spent lots of resources pushing for either the presidential slot or vice president at different times and it was all over the media since last year.
“We, therefore, consider Lalong’s appointment as insulting, degrading and making the region irrelevant in the political calculation of the country.
“We won’t accept this because this is quite unfair and sort of relegating our people to the background.
“That is why we are calling on Gov Lalong to resign this offer, and those celebrating his selection from the region should desist henceforth because this is a great slap on our face.
“We have been pushing for the good of the region in national political affairs all along, but those who have never lent their voices, time and resources to our cause are busy celebrating the ‘relegation’ of our region in this 2023 elections at the national level.
“This is quite insensitive, unfortunate and regrettable.”
